


Twenty-Three

by auriadne



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pining, Requited Love, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, briefly mentioned self harm, phd in sylvain studies, poor coping mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 15:50:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21018320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auriadne/pseuds/auriadne
Summary: Sylvain is twenty-three when he thinks fate has played a cruel trick on him.





	Twenty-Three

Sylvain is twenty years old and doesn’t believe in love.

When he speaks of it, cooing sweet nothings and words of affection to the girls he sees, it’s all an act. Practiced. A perfect story like the tales of knights, chivalry, and romance Ingrid’s always been so fond of. He’s found he’s good at it. The acting and the pretend. The real thing isn’t something he’ll ever have.

Sylvain resigned himself to the duty and expectations of his blood a long time ago. His destiny is carefully laid out. Determined at birth and planned meticulously by his father, his mother, and other nobles that push and pull his strings with money, connections, and fancy titles.

He thought once as a child that there would be one thing they _couldn’t_ control. Who he’s destined to be with- the inscription of a mark bared into his flesh as he grows into adulthood. It’s not ordained by status, nor by his blood. It just _is._ A force of nature, harrowing like the snows of Faerghus’ winters.

Or that is what he used to think. Back when he was still young and naïve. Before his brother tried to kill him over his blood. Before his parents began to speak of arranged marriage and the future of Gautier territory.

And before jealousy began to fester within him.

At Garreg Mach, soulmate marks are the topic of the utmost gossip. Dimitri’s is obvious, lining the back of his hand for all to see. Hilda shows hers off, wearing stockings short enough to highlight the mark above her left knee. Ingrid hides hers. It’s a painful reminder of things that will never be.

Felix got his when he was fourteen. Younger than usual, and he doesn’t talk about it.

Sylvain is jealous of them all because he’s older. Well past the time for the mark to appear, and yet, his skin is bare.

It’s lonely. He’s spent many a night in frustration and disappointment, burying his feelings in a fake smile and in the shallow company of women he never intends to speak to again. It’s unfair, but he’s come to an understanding with it.

Love isn’t for him.

* * *

Sylvain is sixteen when he first tastes the cruelty of war.

The small expanse of his world is shaken overnight. The king dead. A massacre. Dimitri left broken and alone. His closest friends and family lost in an instant. Ingrid’s fiancé, Felix’s brother, returned in a pile of armor.

A power vacuum left in the political landscape of Faerghus.

Sylvain is only a few years older, but it makes a world of difference. It’s not lost on him, that in the small circle of his closest friends, he’s the only one left unscathed. It’s not his family, his friends, that were lost, but those closest to him who are left reeling in the aftermath still too young to understand and cope.

The Felix he finds after Duscur isn’t the same as the one he grew up with. No more is he the soft, sweet boy that trailed after him, looking up to him with stars in his eyes. Praising him with words he’d never get from his own blood. The Felix that stands in front of him at the entrance to the Gautier Estate is cold. There’s no spark, no excitement in his eyes. They’re hollow, and it turns his stomach with unease.

Rodrigue’s hand weighs heavy on his son’s shoulder.

Sylvain’s own father shoves him forward. They have things to speak about of course. The kind of things Sylvain is not yet privy to, but he isn’t stupid, even if he sometimes plays the role. The two heads of the most influential noble houses meeting after the near destruction of the royal family? It’s not a stretch to figure out the reason.

For once, Sylvain is not thrilled to be left alone with Felix. It’s awkward. The tension thick. What could he possibly say without sounding like an insensitive jerk?

“Felix-“

Amber eyes narrow on him, yet Felix doesn’t say a word. In fact, he barely acknowledges him. It’s like he’s a different person, and perhaps he is. He fiddles with a dagger hooked to his side. The handle is ornamental. Sylvain recognizes it, a gift presented to freshly ordained knights.

Sylvain wracks his brain for something, anything to say or do until their parent’s no doubt lengthy conversation is done.

“Do you, uh, want to go outside?”

_“Whatever.”_

Ouch.

Despite the cold shoulder, Felix follows him to the grounds, tracing the footsteps of their past. The lands sprawl in a deep forest of evergreens surrounding his home. The site of their group’s plays of fiction. The same woods where Miklan abandoned him when he was barely seven, leaving him out lost, overnight until the groundskeeper found him. The same woods that he now tracks through in the late hours when he returns from the outlying village.

Felix’s arms are crossed. He looks annoyed. His fingers tighten in the sleeves of his shirt, his knuckles scuffed and bruised.

“What happened to your hands?”

“What do you care?”

Sylvain’s tongue hits the back of his teeth. He’s unused to dealing with a Felix this volatile.

“I’m asking, aren’t I?”

“I got into a fight.” It’s hard to imagine of the boy he once knew. “Father’s sending me off to battle. Fighting in some rebellion. Hoping to tame me into something more knight-worthy, no doubt.”

He says it with such disdain.

“Do you wanna go?”

“To listen to them prattle on about principles and chivalry? No. But to train with a real sword and real stakes? Of course. How else will I get stronger?”

He sounds like Glenn. At least, what Sylvain remembers of him. It makes sense- that in death, he would ascribe to his brother’s ideals.

“Train with me.”

“Now?” He scoffs. “I was very clearly lectured before coming here not to pick a fight with you, Sylvain.”

“It’s not fighting, if I offer.”

“It is when we come back bloodied and bruised. What will the Margrave say?”

“Boys being boys, probably. He’d think you actually managed to knock some sense into me.”

Sylvain barely hides his bitterness.

Felix looks at him curiously. They’re in the same boat. Felix doesn’t know what’s transpired within his own family in the time they’ve been apart, and maybe before, neither of them paid much attention to the details. They’re both caged by expectation in their own way. Gilded as it may be, and in desperate need of an outlet.

Sylvain spends all his time in the public eye constructing a façade, curtailing his feelings and his tongue of what he truly wants to say- settling into the role of his own destructive behavior.

So, he gets it- the holding back.

Felix has been without a doubt. It’s why he lets himself pick fights, throwing himself into the adrenaline and pain. Rodrigue is a better man than his own father, but he’s not so much a better parent to Felix. The favoritism is clear. Glenn was the ideal. A perfect son. A perfect heir. A perfect knight.

The comparisons are sickening. Pitting brother against brother.

Miklan was a failure, and Sylvain was favored- if only as a substitute. Not by choice or desire, but by the hands of fate. Its what Sylvain tries to forget, drowning himself in distractions, in girls, and in parties. Behavior his family only tolerates because of the Crest running through his blood. 

Perhaps, a fight is what Felix needs. His own attempt at coping.

“Does it help?” Sylvain asks.

“I don’t know.”

Uncertainty is good enough for him.

Sylvain tosses a stick to Felix like when they were children playing at knighthood. It falls at his feet.

Its masochistic sure, but it seems a fair trade when all his friends are crippled by loss. It’s a pain Sylvain could never truly understand. Not with a family that’s never loved him, nor relationships that aren’t anything but superficial and self-serving. In a way, it is his own insignificant attempt at sharing in Felix’s wounds. 

If this is all he can do, he’ll take it.

Felix is baffled. His nose scrunches like Sylvain has suddenly grown a second head. “You’re serious, aren’t you?’

“Would I lie?” Scratch that. Over the past year he’s started to gain a reputation. One Felix has clearly heard of with the unimpressed face he makes. “I am serious.” He says more steadily, wielding the broken branch like a sword.

Felix stares at him. He can’t read the expression, and there’s a conspicuously long pause before he shakes his head.

_“Fine.” _

“You won’t cry like last time?”

“I’m not a child.”

He’s barely a teen, hardly even hit his growth spurt. Putting on the façade of an adult.

“Aren’t you?” Sylvain antagonizes.

It’s intentional. An attempt to lure Felix over the edge. He wants to push him over, tug the loose thread that’s barely holding him together. Unravel him to something raw and honest. It’s hypocritical, considering its something Sylvain has never even let himself do.

Felix’s brow dips in a deep furrow. Irritated. His annoyance is fresh when he swings the play sword with the intention and skill of its real counterpart.

Sylvain is not ready and barely stumbles out of the way. He doesn’t remember Felix being this fast when they played as kids. Sylvain is older. Play fighting has always been an easy win, or an intended, calculated loss to see a grin beam across his friends face in a flash of lost baby teeth.

The branches smack with the crack of wood. They are too strong for this now. Too close to breaking their so-called weapons. Or perhaps, they’re both taking this too seriously, exerting an amount of force not intended to target a friend.

Sylvain pants as they dance around. Foot work has never been his strong suit, and he watches Felix’s carefully. He knows the steps, but they don’t come naturally.

“You’ve improved.”

“Obviously.” Felix says with pride. “My broth-“ But his jaw clenches.

Glenn. Sylvain should have kept his damn mouth shut.

In his distraction, Felix’s branch hits his arm. It snaps in two over the crook of his elbow. Sylvain yelps. The bark splinters and draws blood, dripping down his forearm.

The stick falls from Felix’s hands. The look in his eyes distant when his knees hit the ground.

“Felix? Are you alright?”

He doesn’t hear him.

His shoulders shake in a shudder, forehead pressing to the grass.

It’s not the same. It will never be the same. Sylvain thinks, in that moment, they both realize it.

He sits next to him. For once in his life, he keeps his mouth shut only letting his shoulder bump against Felix’s so he knows he’s not alone.

The sound that comes from him is awful. Sylvain will remember it forever. It’s the only time he’s heard something so wretched. Felix is a dam breached. What he kept bottled in the handful of weeks since the tragedy comes tumbling forth in the silence of the woods. Maybe this is what he needs. A sort of catharsis neither of their fathers could ever understand.

Sylvain’s surely didn’t. _Weakness._ It’s what the Margrave chastised him for when he came back sobbing after he was pulled from that well.

Felix is anything but weak.

And Felix is not crying. At least, that is what Sylvain will say when Felix later asks him about it.

* * *

Sylvain is nineteen when he is reunited with his childhood friends, and it becomes glaringly obvious that he has missed out.

Felix has a soul mark. _Felix of all people_. He could barely quell his shock when Ingrid mentioned it on the off chance. The thought of Felix in love- swooning, starry eyed and flushed- it’s downright comedic. Ridiculous even. He’s so stern, so dedicated to a singular purpose. Its hard to imagine a person getting in the way of it.

He’s not been particularly forthcoming, or even friendly for that matter, since moving into the dorms at Garreg Mach. Most of the time they speak its at Sylvain’s own insistence. This is no different, and he corners him in the dining hall where escape is futile unless Felix plans to skip a meal.

Sylvain leans over the table, met with Felix’s suspicious gaze.

“Ingrid told me you have one. That you got it ages ago. How come I’ve never heard? You didn’t tell me- your one and only best friend.”

Best friend might be a strong term, but considering both of their lacking proficiency in creating real bonds, its not an inaccurate one. Sylvain longs for the days when he could easily call Felix a friend.

“It’s not important.” Felix says into his food. There’s no glare or irritation at Sylvain breathing the same air as him today. He’s surprisingly agreeable. Sylvain isn’t sure why.

“What a cruel thing to say!” He jokes. “Imagine what Annette or Mercie would say. They’d be so disappointed. Actually, if you told them they’d probably make it their mission to find yours- to see someone turn the bitter, prickly Felix Hugo Fraldarius into something sweet.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m food.” He grumbles. “They’d be more disappointed in you. The way you flit around women. There’s no way they’re all your match.”

His grin falters. Felix doesn’t even realize it- that he’s hit a sore spot.

He could lie, but what’s the point. It’s probably going to get around in rumors anyways. The Gautier heir, Crest bearer, and playboy extraordinaire with no mark. A loveless creature dragging down hapless girls with him. He can picture the dramatic horror stories and shock. What a bad reputation it will bring him, granted much of his reputation he has brought upon himself.

Sylvain clears his throat. “I don’t have one.”

“But you’re-“ Felix’s eyes widen like many he just assumed. Sylvain laughs awkwardly. “You’re not lying? I always thought-“

“Is it really that shocking?”

Felix absently tugs on the fabric of his pants.

“I suppose not.”

That Felix believes he’s not capable of love- someone he grew up with, his own childhood friend- now that actually hurts, piercing deeper than any sword he will ever carry.

* * *

Sylvain is on the cusp of twenty-one when his world falls apart, torn asunder by the marching flags of war.

Garreg Mach is in shambles, the school thrown into chaos under the siege of the Imperial forces.

They made their escape, alongside the other students, and Sylvain can’t get past the feeling that it was a cowardly move. Yet he doesn’t want to die a meaningless death, not with the times that are upon them.

Dimitri and Dedue return to Fhirdiad. Ingrid, Felix, and himself make the long trek back to their homes. The travel was silent. Ingrid departed first once they reached the borders of Galatea, and Felix is next.

Its nearly nightfall when they approach the keep. Its defensible and sensible. He wouldn’t expect anything less from the home of the Shield of Faerghus.

Felix stops and dismounts. He waits for Sylvain to do the same.

“I’m going on ahead.”

It’s never been a question in his mind that he’d return to House Gautier to take up the Lance of Ruin.

“Rest for today. We’ve been travelling non-stop.”

He forces a grin entirely inappropriate for their situation. “It’s unlike you to worry so much.”

“Of course, I worry, Sylvain.” He says it like it pains him.

“Aw, want to give me a goodbye hug?”

“No.” He answers far too quickly. “Stay for the night. My father won’t object. He’d probably insist.” Just like Felix is insisting now. He has the same bags under his eyes, the same exhaustion that weighs his bones, which is mirrored in himself. Yet he can’t stop, not in good conscious, no matter how well-meaning his offer is.

“I can’t. You understand that, don’t you? They need me there. They need the lance.”

It hums from his saddle bag in an unnatural glow, twitching in the evening light.

Felix looks at him- no, studies him- lips pressed tight. His steady eyes swirl with thought. After a moment, he huffs and bitterly accepts defeat. Sylvain thinks it might be the first time.

“Fine.”

“Write me, okay? I want to know that you’re still kicking down here. And kicking some Imperial ass too.” It’s framed as a joke but his concern is genuine.

“I will.”

He turns back to his horse, putting a foot in the stirrup. Felix catches his sleeve before he pulls himself fully to the saddle. “Sylvain.” His voice is heavy in a way Sylvain hasn’t heard in a long time. “I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.”

“I know.” He remembers quietly. “I won’t break our promise.”

He assures though there is no certainty he will be able to uphold his words.

* * *

Sylvain is twenty-three when he thinks fate has played a cruel trick on him.

_Felix is beautiful._

He can’t place if the feeling is honest, or if it’s the kind of beauty he sees in Mercedes when he’s left bleeding out on the battlefield seeking a welcome savior.

He’s fallen from his horse. His armor cuts sharp into his flesh, blood spilling across trampled grass from the pierce of a lance. Felix shouts his name. He can’t hear over the din of the bloodshed nor the dizzying sensation that rises to his head, but he can tell in his expression. The fear and concern that draws onto Felix’s face.

Its silly. The sight makes him warm.

Felix throws himself through the clash of soldiers. When Sylvain next opens his eyes, he’s standing above him sword in hand. His heels dig solid in the earth beneath him.

Sylvain blinks in realization. It’s both.

The beauty is there.

Its striking. In Felix’s ferocity and skill, the focus that narrows his eyes with one goal. Like the crash of heavy waves against the shore, eroding away rock and sand back to the sea. Or the fire that burns through the forest, returning the minerals to the ground to start anew. Natural, destructive, purposeful, and poignant.

He cuts down three Imperial soldiers, quickly and efficiently.

“I’m glad you’re here.” Sylvain wheezes, urging himself forward onto his elbows despite the pain.

“Should you-“

“I’ve had worse.” Sylvain assures.

Nonetheless, Felix offers him a hand, pulling him to his feet. “You’re a fool, Sylvain.” He says with a fondness that makes his chest ache worse than the wounds. “Some things never change.”

Felix carries him. Or _attempts to_ carry him off the field, his arm slung over his shoulders sharing in the weight of Sylvain’s own body. His armor creaks and groans with the sound of metal scraping as they make it off the battlefield.

Sylvain collapses to the ground, and Felix is already over him, fingers tugging straps and buckles lose from his armor, peeling the metal case from him to assess the extent of the damage.

“I’ll help. I’ve picked up a few healing spells since the start of this war.”

Sylvain breathes a short laugh. “How could I say no to that?”

Felix freezes when he removes his pauldrons.

“What is this?” The tips of his fingers trace dark lines that bloomed from his skin mere months ago.

He shrugs. “I got one. Who would have thought? Bit unfair, given the circumstances. But I’m not complaining. “

“You don’t have a soulmate mark.” Felix says despite the contradiction under his touch.

Obviously, he does.

“What about yours?”

“Gone.”

“What the hell does that mean. They don’t disappear, do they?”

Even in death, as he’s seen with Ingrid, the mark stays. Forever a reminder.

“No.” He traces along the gash at his side. “I burned it off.” Felix sighs. “After Glenn.”

“Wha- no, why would you do that?” Sylvain is too accusatory, but he spent too many years jealous of Felix. Bitter and cruel, in spite of their history and the weight between them. The knowledge he had destroyed the one thing Sylvain sought is beyond his comprehension.

“In war and in peace, people die untimely, meaningless, cruel deaths. It’s how the world works. Wouldn’t it be better, safer to not know? I wanted to not know.” Felix grimaces. The glow under his fingertips spreads warm across his skin giving him relief from the pain. “It didn’t help.”

“Of course, it didn’t.” Sylvain doesn’t mean to snap.

Felix snaps back reflexively. “I was barely more than a child. Can you blame me? You can’t understand the anguish I felt.”

“I killed my own brother, Felix. We weren’t close like you two, but do you think a day goes by where I don’t bear the weight of that?”

Felix’s mouth closes tight.

“I didn’t mean-“

“I know. I know. I’m sorry.” He shakes his head. His hand comes to cover Felix’s pulling it from him when his wound is mended to the best of his ability. “Do you remember?” He asks. Perhaps too hopeful. “What it looks like.”

Felix won’t look him in the eye. Felix won’t look a lot of people in the eye, but never him- not before.

“Would you show me, Felix?”

“I can’t.”

“You can draw it out. Is that okay?”

Felix shakes his head.

“Do you not trust me with this?”

“That’s not it.”

Felix stares at his arm, tracing over the dark lines of his mark. There’s a hesitation, a sense of nerves that Felix normally lacks. His hand rests on Felix’s right thigh. The same place he’s seen a large scar. He always assumed it was from battle or an accident. Never once did he assume it was self-inflicted.

Sylvain’s voice is caught in the back of his throat. He leans towards Felix, risking everything on a gut feeling.

Their lips brush.

“Is it me?” He whispers.

Felix’s eyes go wide in shock, his face a dark red. He worries his lip between teeth before he all but admits the truth.

“It’s not fair.” Felix mutters. “You didn’t have one.”

His nose bumps Sylvain’s, barely putting any distance between them. The warm puff of his breath ghosts across his face, his lips. Goddess, Sylvain has never wanted to kiss someone so badly before.

Felix’s amber eyes finally raise to his own. Conflicted and heavy. “For the longest time. How cruel was it to think what I felt was fake. To see you go out with all those women. To know that you weren’t-“ Felix swallows. “You were there for me. The way no one else was. Even when I pushed you away. You’re the only one that didn’t celebrate his death while I grieved for the years he’d never have. And you’re the only one who grieved for the me that died that day.”

“I ignored you for years. All those letters you wrote when we were kids-“ Sylvain remembers every single one of them. The things he wrote when he was sixteen, trying any and everything to help Felix. He convinced himself at some point after the tenth letter that Felix hated him. “I’m sorry. I never got rid of them even after all these years.”

“Don’t apologize.”

“I should.”

“Well, I’m just as guilty then.” He thinks of all the mean things he said to Felix when they were at the academy, and he let envy get the best of him. Sylvain laughs bitterly. It rings hollow and a little strained.

But it’s okay. Things are okay. 

Felix’s forehead presses to his shoulder, holding on for just a little longer. Before reality kicks in and they’re thrown back into the inevitable throes of combat, spread thin across the northern lands of Faerghus. It feels indulgent. Too soft and tender for hands that have taken so many lives. Its not something he ever expected to have.

Sylvain’s head tilts, pressed into Felix’s hair.

“You know, I always wanted you to hug me.”

“You’re terrible.” Felix mutters with no malice. His hands drag up the back of his shirt, barely grasping at the fur of his collar as he buries his face into it.

Sylvain thinks he’s been cheated of time, but it’s better late than never.

“If we’re going to die for this war. I’m grateful to have you by my side.”

“You’re not going to die, Sylvain. I’ll make sure of it.”

**Author's Note:**

> [ tumblr ](https://auriadne.tumblr.com/)   
[ twitter ](https://twitter.com/celesttea_)


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